I stepped closer, crowding her space just enough, my voice dropping into a low growl.
“Date or not, you’re still gonna save me a dance or two.”
She didn’t flinch. If anything, her expression turned a little sharper, more pleased—like she was savoring the way I’d just handed her the upper hand. Good, let him stew, let him wonder who I’m bringing. I didn’t have to tell him it’s my best friend, who’s a woman. She just let it hang there between us, that secret little smirk telling me she knew exactly what she was doing. And damn if it didn’t make me want to kiss her stupid all over again just to wipe it off her face.
CHAPTER 11
SIENNA
The sun wasa goddamn hammer today, beating down on the desert like it had a personal grudge. I’d ditched the long-sleeve field shirt an hour ago for a thin tank top—white, because apparently I still cared about not showing up to Tank’s wedding looking like I’d lost a fight with a tractor. At least this way the tan lines wouldn’t scream “field grunt who never sees the inside of a salon.” My arms were already streaked with dust and sweat, my jeans stiff with dried mud from the last sample site, and every breath tasted like hot dirt and regret.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket for the fourth time. I wiped my forehead with the back of my wrist, gloves leaving a smear of red clay across my skin, and pulled it out.
Regan:Girls night tonight. Tank’s bride is finally in town and we’re doing the bachelorette for real this time. Even if it’s her third one. Strippers might be involved. We have to sneak them past the guys tho. You in?
I stared at the screen, thumb hovering. The idea of loud music, too many cocktails, and Regan’s chaotic energy sounded like heaven compared to this. But then I glanced at the cooler full of water samples I’d just pulled from the monitoring well, theones that had come back with numbers that didn’t make sense. Numbers that made my stomach twist.
Me:Wish I could. Bogged down out here. Soil and air samples piling up.
Her reply came in under thirty seconds, like she’d been waiting with her thumbs on the keys.
Regan:Really? Soil and air samples? Sounds like you’re REALLY busy.Come on, Sienna. One night. You need this.
I sighed, the sound lost under the wind rattling the scrub brush around me. She wasn’t wrong. After the bar fight, the sidewalk kiss, the cat chase, and Mason’s growly demand for a dance at the wedding… yeah, I needed a night where the only drama was deciding how many shots was too many. But the data on my tablet didn’t lie. Something was very, very off.
The water samples from the last three sites showed elevated levels of industrial solvents—stuff that didn’t belong anywhere near the aquifer. Not trace amounts. Not “maybe it’s runoff from the highway.” This was deliberate. Concentrated. Someone had been dumping, and it was leaching straight into the groundwater that fed half the town.
I hit Regan back quick:Rain check? Swear I’ll make it up to you before the wedding.
Then I dialed my boss before I could talk myself out of it.
He answered on the second ring, voice clipped. “Sienna.”
“Dr. Harlan, the latest batch from the north transect?—”
“Not on the phone,” he hissed. “Site 19. Two hours.”
The line went dead.
Great. Nothing screamed “routine field day” like a paranoid boss demanding a meet at the ass-end of the desert.
I spent the next ninety minutes driving the dusty back roads, tank top sticking to my spine, AC blasting uselessly against the heat rolling off the dashboard. By the time I pulled up to the old monitoring station at Site 19—an unmarked shed tucked behinda ridge of rock that looked like it hadn’t seen a human in years—my nerves were tighter than the winch cable on Mason’s bike.
Dr. Harlan was already there, leaning against his truck, arms crossed. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. “Took you long enough.”
I killed the engine and stepped out, boots crunching on gravel. “The numbers don’t lie. Someone’s been dumping chemicals. Solvents, heavy metals—way over any background level. It’s seeping into the aquifer.”
He rubbed a hand over his face, eyes darting toward the empty road behind me. “Yeah. I think so too. They’ve been burying it. Drums, maybe. I found disturbed soil up by the old Oakley property line last month.”
Oakley Company. Old money. The kind of family that owned half the country clubs and all the politicians who mattered. Country-club money, he’d called it once. The kind that made problems disappear.
I crossed my arms, ignoring the way sweat trickled down my back. “That’s our job, though. Document it. Report it. We can’t just?—”
“We can’t touch it,” he cut in, voice flat. “Not yet. People get shot over shit like this. You know how deep their pockets go. I’m… I’m not even sure our boss isn’t on the take. Something’s off with the oversight chain.”
The knot that had been forming in my stomach since the lab results tightened hard. I thought of the fat raise they’d dangled when I took this job. The way the last environmental scientist had “walked” with zero notice.
He must have seen it on my face. “Just leave the samples with me. Don’t log them into the database. Not yet.”
